“Car accident,” James said without thinking about it. “Six years ago,” he spit out, “during the pandemic.”
Drake lowered the gun, apparently satisfied James was who he said he was. His eyes narrowed and he nodded. “What do you have to eat back there?”
“Clams,” said James. “They’re probably about to burn if I don't get back there. You want some?”
Drake nodded, tucking the gun in his pants. “You got a cold one too?”
“There should be some in the cooler,” Frank said. “Budweiser.”
James slipped back into the kitchen and hurriedly made two plates of clams. He found some chips in an open bag and dumped a handful onto both plates. He backed his way out of the kitchen and into the dining room.
“Here you go.” He slid the plates to the punks. They’d taken seats at the bar.
“Where’s the beer?” asked Drake.
“Getting it now.” James bowed, adjusted the cap on his head, and returned to the kitchen. He found the cooler and pulled out two six packs of Budweiser by the end of the plastic yokes holding them together. He hoped providing them with more than they expected would momentarily ingratiate him to the punks.
“Here’s the beer,” said James, banging the six packs onto the counter. “A sixer for both of you.” James saw their eyes light up. Then he noticed Frank’s grimace.
“Wicked awesome!” said Bruce. “Love it, Jimmy James.”
Drake, fork in hand and his mouth full of clams, nodded his appreciation and then returned to his plate. James used the distraction to grab his pack and drag it into the kitchen without either punk saying anything.
“I’ll be right back,” Frank said to his guests and followed James through the kitchen door. “You’re the guy they’re looking for,” he whispered, standing just inches from James at the butcher block.
James nodded and took off the hat, handing it to Frank. He pulled the apron over his head and hung it next to the door.
“What did you do?” Frank asked, looking at the door as he spoke. “Why are they after you?”
“Long story, Frank.” James slung the pack onto his back. “I gotta go.”
“Okay,” said Frank.
“Hey,” Drake called from the dining room. “Grab me another six pack, Frank! We’ll be hanging out at Hannigan’s, looking for that Nissan. I’m gonna need something to keep me busy.”
“Sure thing!” Frank called back before offering his hand to James. “You be careful, Jimmy James.” A smile crept across the old man’s face, his eyes alight behind the thick lenses of his eyeglasses.
“It’s good to know there are kind people out there, Frank,” said James. “I was beginning to lose hope.”
“Don’t lose hope,” said Frank. “Right now, it’s all we got.”
CHAPTER 20
EVENT +28:09 Hours
Waterboro, Maine
“We’re ready to go,” said Leigh. “Everybody’s gone to the bathroom one last time. We’re fed. We’re rested. We’re fueled up?”
“We’re fueled up,” said James, closing the Nissan’s trunk. “I’ll drive the first shift. Okay?”
Leigh sidled up to her husband, putting her hands on his chest. “Are you sure you’re up to it? You walked for four or five hours, carrying those heavy cans for half of it.”
“I’m fine,” James lied. He felt weak and shaky. Occasionally a chill would run through his body. But he wanted to drive. He wanted to feel some sense of control.
The kids plopped into the backseats of the Nissan and Leigh agreed to let her husband take the wheel. They had a long trip ahead of them.
James knew the punks, Bruce and Drake, would be at Hannigan’s. While he didn’t know where, or what, exactly it was, he assumed it was in town. So rather than risk a drive south through Waterboro, he chose to head farther west.
“Why are you driving west?” Leigh questioned him, about fifteen minutes into the drive. “Don’t we need to head south?”
“How do you know I’m driving west?” James hadn’t told her about the diner encounter with the punks.
“I have a map.” She looked at him as if his parents had named him Jimmy James.
“It’s better to stay off the main roads, remember?” He coughed as he explained.
“Okay.” Her eyes narrowed. “But there were plenty of ways to head south without going this far west. What’s up?”
“I’m avoiding the BMW,” he admitted, keeping his eyes on the road.
“What?” She shifted in her seat, turning toward James and tugging on the shoulder strap of her seatbelt. “What do you mean?”
“I mean I saw those guys when I was getting the gas,” James said.
“And?” Leigh’s voice rose an octave.
“What do you mean you saw those guys?” Max bounced forward, sticking his head between the two front seats. “Dad? Seriously?”
“They showed up at the diner looking for us.” James exhaled as he told them the truth. “Actually, they were looking for the Nissan.”
“Did they see you?” Leigh folded her arms across her chest. “Did they recognize you? They couldn’t have recognized you.”
“They didn’t recognize me,” James said, “but they did talk to me.”
“And?” Leigh said, slapping her husband’s leg. “Sheesh, Rock, you’re not giving us anything. What happened?”
James relayed the details of his close call at the diner, how he’d pretended to be a cook and fed the two punks a meal. He also explained they were part of some militia in charge of “protecting” the area.
“What does that mean?” asked Leigh. “What does militia mean? I thought the police were in charge. They’re taking everyone’s cars and guns. Why aren’t the police in charge? How could some militia have any power?”
“I don’t know,” said James, slowing the Nissan to avoid a large branch in the road. “I just know what they said. One of them said his dad was the leader of the militia and they were put in charge of that area.”
“So, how big is the militia?” asked Leigh.
“What is a militia?” asked Max.
“A militia is a group of armed citizens,” answered James. “I don’t know how big this group is or what they’re trying to accomplish. But typically, a militia acts like it’s an army. It can be good or bad.”
“How is it good?” asked Max.
“The founders of our country were in a militia,” said James. “They weren’t a real army at first. When they challenged the British, they were basically a militia.”
“Do we have to worry about them?” Leigh asked.
“I don’t know,” James answered. “That’s why I’m trying my best to avoid them.”
CHAPTER 21
EVENT +29:35 Hours
Acton, Maine
The Nissan’s windshield wipers did little to swipe the downpour of raindrops from James’s vision. The storm, building for much of the past day, had finally unloaded itself on the Rockwells.
They’d traveled just twenty-two miles in an hour and a half. James was seated as far forward as possible so as to see through the deluge. On the narrow back roads, in the rain, he couldn’t see much more than ten feet in front of the car. That’s why he didn’t see the three men, dressed in fatigues, standing guard at a small bridge.
One of them stood in the middle of the road, a semiautomatic rifle slung across his chest. He was holding out his hand, instructing them to stop.
“This isn’t good,” Leigh murmured, grabbing her husband’s thigh. “What do we do?”
“Play along,” said James, coughing and clearing his throat. “That’s all we can do right now.”
“Mommy?” Sloane whimpered. “What’s happening?’
“Everything’s okay, baby,” said Leigh. She turned and looked at Max. He shook his head, apparently aware of the danger ahead of them.
One of the men strode to James’s window and knocked. James rolled down the window, rain spraying into the car.
&nb
sp; “State your business.” The man had a handheld radio.
“Just trying to get home,” said James. “We’re from Maryland. We were on—”
“You can’t cross here,” said the man. A second armed man approached the window. He aimed his rifle at James.
“We’re just trying to get home, sir. We—”
“Nothing gets across in either direction,” barked the radioman. “Those are my orders.”
“Whose orders?” James asked. “Homeland Security?”
The gunman laughed. The radioman answered, “No. We’re with the Maine Liberty Militia.”
“Okay.” James looked over at Leigh before turning his attention back to the thugs. The rain was lessening, but still soaking the inside of the car. “Who can give us permission to head south, then?”
“That’s not happening,” said the gunman.
“What’s going on here?” The man who’d stopped the Rockwells moved from the front of the car to the window. Now all three of the men were huddled around the open window. “Is there a problem?”
“There’s no problem.” James raised his hands off of the wheel. “We just want to go south, toward our home in Maryland. “How can we make that happen?”
“We’re not letting anyone across, sir,” said the radioman. “I explained that to him.” He turned to the third man.
“We don’t want a repeat of 2013,” said the third man. “When the pandemic happened, there was a lot of looting, a lot of violence. We’re preventing that from happening.”
“We’re not looting anyone,” James argued. “We’re a family trying to get home.”
“Look,” said the radioman, “you have two options. One is to turn around and head back the way you came. The other is to surrender your car. We’ll take you to Sanford or Springvale and then it’s up to you how you proceed from there.”
“Yeah.” James laughed. “I’m not giving up my car.”
“We’re not giving up our car,” said Leigh, leaning toward the open window.
“Then you’ll have to—” The radioman was interrupted by someone on the radio. “Hang on, please.”
The radioman stepped away from the car and turned his back. He held the radio to his ear, spoke into it, and listened again. Then he turned, glanced at James, and waved to both of his compatriots.
“What are they doing?” asked Leigh, her voice quavering.
“I don’t know,” James said.
The radioman started to walk toward the car and then pivoted and stepped around behind it. The rear window was fogged and James couldn’t see what the man was doing.
He returned and looked at James again before running his finger along the side of the Nissan. He called the other two back to the car.
“We got a communiqué about a Nissan causing some trouble in Waterboro yesterday,” he said. “White or gray in color, likely damage along the driver’s side. Were you in Waterboro?”
“We—” Before James could answer, the radioman pulled open the back door and aimed his rifle at Sloane.
“Get out of the car!” said the radioman. “Now!”
“Wait!” James said. “Hang on!”
The other two gunmen descended on James, unlatching his seatbelt and yanking him from the car. He was forced to his knees as the men pulled the rest of his family from their seats.
“You messed with the wrong people,” sneered the radioman. “It’ll be a mistake you don’t live to regret.”
CHAPTER 22
EVENT +30:59 Hours
Acton, Maine
James looked over at his wife, his children. He swallowed hard.
“Pick up the pace, Rock,” said the executioner. “Keep moving.”
A breeze blew across James’s face. It was damp and cool, a sign of the approaching fall. He could hear it whispering its way through the trees ahead of him.
Do something! They were telling him. Save your family.
He shook his head as he trudged forward, certain the blow to his head had him hearing things. It was that or the lack of sleep.
You can’t let them die here.
They were twenty-five yards from the beckoning woods, crossing the pavement of a parking lot entrance, when James wondered if his eyes were playing tricks on him too.
Facedown in the trampled weeds marking the entrance to the woods were five bodies. Two big, three small. He couldn’t make out whether they were men or women, boys or girls, but that was irrelevant.
James knew, hallucinations or not, they wouldn’t be the first family to die here. They wouldn’t be the last either, unless he acted quickly…unless he killed first. It was a notion to which the high school physics teacher from Maryland had grown alarmingly accustomed in the last thirty-six hours.
But he was running out of time.
And then he wasn’t.
James didn’t know the direction from which the shots came. But he heard them zip through the air.
Two pops, a rifle barking twice in succession followed by the sound of the executioner hitting the pavement with a squeal and a grunt.
Another shot.
James turned to see blood spraying from the older thug’s neck. He collapsed, grabbing at his neck as he fell.
“Run!” James didn’t know who was shooting. And he wasn’t going to stop to find out. He shoved Leigh in the back as she screamed for the children to race to the woods. They sprinted, the four of them, past a dozen bodies, until they were a good fifty yards into the trees. James tripped over a stump, falling into the thick, rain-soaked undergrowth.
“What happened?” Leigh knelt at her husband’s side, helping him sit up. “What was that?”
“I don’t know,” said James. “An angel, maybe.” In the distance, back toward the church, they could hear the crack of gunfire. It sounded like a war.
“What do we do?” Leigh asked. “Our car, our packs…”
“I don’t know,” James said. “There were a bunch of cars in that parking lot. I bet we could take one of them. I bet they still have keys in them.”
“We can’t take someone else’s car,” Leigh protested. “What if—”
“Those people are dead, Leigh.” James pushed himself to his feet. “They’re not going to need their cars.”
Leigh looked back at the path they’d run into the woods, toward the bodies she’d sprinted past. “You’re right,” she conceded.
“I’m going back to get a car,” James said. “You wait just past the edge of the trees. Stay hidden until I pull up in whatever I can get. Then get in and we’ll get out of here.”
“You can’t go now!” Leigh pointed toward the church. “There’s a gun battle going on over there.”
“I can’t wait.” James took his wife by her shoulders. “We don’t know who’s winning and who’s losing. That gunfight is the perfect distraction.”
Leigh nodded. “C’mon, kids.” She waved to her children and held both by the hand as they trudged back toward the church parking lot. “Keep your eyes closed,” she instructed, not wanting them to see the bodies they were about to pass. “I’ll lead you.”
Neither child protested, both of them too much in shock to argue. They followed their mother, eyes closed, toward the sound of gunfire. They squeezed their mother’s hands as tightly as was possible.
James marched a few feet ahead of them, focused on the task at hand. He ignored the pain in his thigh, the tightness in his chest. He wiped the rain from his brow and emerged from the trees.
“Wait here!” he called back to his family and then turned back to the parking lot. He stopped at the bodies of the thug and executioner, grabbing the handgun and one of the rifles.
Crouched low, he crossed the lot toward the cars. Ahead of him, at the church, he saw a Jeep slam on its brakes, its taillights illuminating streaks of rain in their red glow.
James couldn’t tell how many people were attacking the church, but that’s how it appeared. It was like a Seal Team 6 operation, James imagined. He wondered who, or what
, was held captive inside the church.
Crossing the lot, he counted eight or nine cars. He tried the doors for a white minivan, a Mercedes crossover, and a Volvo station wagon. All of them were locked.
He moved to another row of vehicles, hoping for better luck. One of them was a Ford F-150 truck. It had four doors, and as James approached, he could see camping gear, gas tanks, and a large white Yeti cooler in its bed.
James kept low as he rounded the truck to the driver’s side door. It was locked. He tried the rear door on the same side.
Bingo!
It was unlocked and James climbed into the rear of the truck’s cabin. He turned his body and quietly shut the door before worming his way into the driver’s seat. He reached for the ignition and found a key already inserted. He cranked it and the truck’s engine responded, grumbling to an idle.
There was three-quarters of a tank, which was good. James knew that would carry them out of Maine, at least, and maybe through Massachusetts before they’d need more fuel.
Maybe things were better farther south, he hoped as he put the truck into gear and pressed the accelerator. He swung the truck around, past another row of cars and toward the woods. He pulled up, slammed the truck into park and hopped out on the pavement.
“Let’s go!” James called to his family. He yanked open the rear door, herding his kids into the backseat. “Get in the driver’s seat!” he yelled to Leigh, and she scurried past him into the truck. James dropped the rifle into the truck’s bed, hiding it underneath a plastic blue tarp and securing it with a pair of bungees attached to the Yeti.
He ran around the back of the truck and climbed into the front passenger’s seat. As he hopped inside, he looked out toward the church. Through the rain and fog, he could see the muzzle flashes from the firefight. He prayed for the person who’d saved his life, who’d rescued his family.
“Thank you,” he mouthed toward the church as Leigh gunned the truck away from the church.
“I don’t think that bridge is going to be a problem now,” said Leigh. “I think we should head south.”
Pilgrimage: A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Story Page 9